When we think of beautiful mature wooded areas being decimated to create additional space for grazing cattle, often what comes to mind first is the loss of rainforests in South America. But it turns out the same thing is happening right here in Douglas County. (And probably in many other places that also have growing markets for local grass-fed meat) At least three different tracts of heavily wooded land in the surrounding Lawrence area, have been completely stripped of trees and turned into cow pastures, in just the past few years.

I first became aware of this problem, when a large heavily wooded tract I often drive by (near E 850 road and N 1850 road) was systematically bulldozed and then the enormous piles of uprooted trees were burned. The dozing and burning went on for weeks and was so bad, that people more than a mile away, even with all their windows shut, could smell smoke inside their homes for more than a month. When the burning was finally over, and much of the topsoil had darkened our streams on its way into the river, the tract was seeded with grass. Since that time it has been grazing land for cows. Here (Below) is what this once beautiful, thick forest looks like now (the cows get moved to and from this pasture with some regularity -- and didn't happen to be on it the day I went to take a photo.)

​Upon discussing what I had seen with others, I learned that similar events have happened to at least two other parcels in Douglas County. Here is a Google Earth image of about 160 acres located at approximately1032 N. 1100 road that used to be just as thickly wooded as the surrounding area until it was cleared for cattle. The third property I know of is located on E 300 road, near 40 Highway. The image at the beginning of this article (in the upper left corner) shows what is left of the thick woods that use to run all the way down to the creek -- as soon as the cow fences are secure it too will be used to meet the demand for "local, grass fed beef."​

The growing popularity of, “buy local” combined with the fact that meat, dairy and eggs from small farms raising animals on pasture commands the highest prices, means there are now strong economic incentives driving the decimation of local forests in order to meet this growing demand for local, grass-fed products. If you are buying, consuming or even just encouraging others to eat local meat and dairy, you are helping to drive the destruction of our local forests --annihilating habitat of free-living animals, eroding topsoil, and polluting our streams, and polluting our air in order to feed the most privileged humans the most classist foods. There is a good reason why large industrial-based, animal confinement operations flourished in the first place – confining animals in small spaces and feeding them grain, maximizes production of animal protein per unit of land. This, combined with government subsidies, makes industrial meat, dairy and eggs cheap, and has caused Americans to consume far greater amounts of them, then we did 100 years ago. As more people jump on the ‘grass fed’ and ‘local’ bandwagon, and pay more for what they erroneously believe is a less problematic product, more forests will have to come down just to provide these people the same amount of animal protein that they were eating before. Furthermore, grass fed animals actually produce even MORE greenhouse gasses before they are killed for meat, because they grow more slowly, thus living longer and emitting more methane, and other waste products before they reach slaughter size.The choice is NOT between supporting either large animal confinement operations, or small local farms touting the more classist meat, dairy and eggs. There is a better option – veganism.